4 reasons for a break

I had planned to post a picture of the square study in purple. That is until I realized I’d

1. Joined the front side of the 2^nd motif to the back side of the 1^st motif.

2. Forgot a bead on a bead join picot.

3. Used the wrong color bead on another bead join picot.

4. Forgot I had adjusted the stitch count on the outer ring of the onion ring on a corner.

Now, when I’m sitting at the organ and I make that many mistakes, I know it’s time for a break. Some food, maybe some tea, and maybe even a walk outside or finishing a looming chore.

So, I took a break and thus didn’t finish the tatting before I needed to head to bead. The next morning was going to be the start of a busy day and I wanted to get enough sleep. If I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t sleep, I’d work on it then. I slept like a log. So, no purple square study.

More next week on that busy day. There’s the teaser: Project Management, Artist in Residence, Hymn Studies, Classic American Organ Registration, Theater Organ Registration, Doublewide Doubleweave, Journalism, Color Theory in Lace Design, and oh yeah….planning for what house remodel will get done during the Holiday Shutdown.

Thinking outside the round

Perhaps it’s because music is typically printed in square or rectangular format, but I’ve always been drawn to square shapes in tatting. No, I guess that can’t be the reason. Could be I’m just all angles and points. Regardless, when a friend showed me a copy of Workbasket from the 70’s, I had to try this from the tatting page:

Tatted Scarf Square from Workbasket

I thought that the onion ring corners might turn out better than my previous attempts at onion rings. The picots joining to the chains help. I rather like the negative space with the long picots from the center ring. I have a list of possibilities to dress that area up: beads, twisting, complex chains, maybe even daisy picot style wrapping. I left the square unblocked so that I could remember the issues working through the pattern easier. The center ring was a bit difficult to keep from twisting around as I tat the DS separated by so many picots. The chains forming the onion layers tended to wander away from where they were supposed to be due to the picots joining. Overall, I do like the basic structure. I’ll be writing up my notes and practicing making diagrams with this little bit.